Pipwood English privacy policy

Effective 29 October 2026. From MR AppWorks, the publisher of Pipwood English.

Pipwood English is a free Android app that teaches children aged 2 to 5 their first English words through spoken games. This page is for the grown-up who installs it. It says what Pipwood keeps, where it keeps it, and what Pipwood never does.

What Pipwood keeps on the phone

Pipwood keeps a small database and some sound files in its own private storage on the phone. Other apps cannot read it. It holds:

• Each child’s first name. This is optional. A grown-up types it when setting up. Please use a first name or a nickname only.
• Each child’s toy and colour, an age band, and a few yes-or-no answers about what the child can already do. A grown-up gives these at set-up so the course can start in the right place.
• The settings a grown-up chooses, such as play time, the bedtime rule, sound effects, app pinning and whether the optional Urdu helper voice is on.
• Progress: which lessons were played, which words were met and learned, how many minutes were played today, a small count for each day, and the keepsakes the child has earned.
• How far the optional Urdu helper voice has faded for each instruction.
• Whether to offer the Urdu helper voice. It is offered only in Pakistan. Pipwood decides this once, when it is first opened, from the phone’s region and time zone setting, and keeps only that yes or no. It reads nothing else about where the phone is.
• Voice recordings, if a grown-up makes any (see below).

Pipwood uses this only to run the app on this phone: to remember where each child is, to show progress to the grown-up, and to keep play time and bedtime. It is not used for anything else.

What Pipwood never does

• It does not go online anywhere a child plays. The only page it opens online is the feedback form, behind the parent check.
• It has no ads and no ad networks.
• It has no accounts or sign-in.
• It has no analytics, no tracking and no crash-reporting service.
• It does not use your location, contacts, camera, photos or files.
• It does not read your phone’s identifiers, such as the advertising ID.
• It does not share, sell or rent any data.
• It has no in-app purchases and no links out to websites for children to follow.
• It contains no software from third parties that collects information.

The microphone and recordings

Pipwood can use the microphone in one place only: the My voice tab in the grown-ups’ area. There, a grown-up can record their own voice saying the child’s name and a few words. Pipwood then plays that recording in the games instead of its built-in voice, so the child hears a parent.

• The grown-ups’ area is behind a parent check. A child cannot reach My voice by tapping.
• Pipwood asks Android for microphone permission only when a grown-up first taps Record. It does not ask when the app starts, and never on a screen a child uses.
• Pipwood listens only while a recording is under way. A recording stops when the grown-up taps again, or after 10 seconds. If the app goes to the background before then, that recording is thrown away.
• A recording is saved as a sound file in Pipwood’s private storage on this phone. It is never uploaded.
• Pipwood does not transcribe, analyse or keep any recording for any other purpose. It only plays it back in the games.
• If you refuse the permission, Pipwood keeps working with its built-in voices. You can allow or remove the permission at any time in the phone’s settings for Pipwood.

Speech from the phone

Pipwood’s voices are recordings built into the app. There is one exception. If a grown-up has typed a child’s first name and has not recorded that name, Pipwood asks the phone’s own text-to-speech voice to say it when the child picks their toy.

• Only that first name is passed to the phone’s speech engine. Nothing else is.
• The speech engine is part of Android, or an app that came with the phone. It is not part of Pipwood, and Pipwood does not control it. Most engines speak on the phone. If your engine uses an online voice, that is covered by the engine maker’s own policy. You can choose another engine, or avoid this by recording the name in My voice.
• Pipwood itself sends nothing over a network, except the feedback form when a grown-up sends it.

Feedback

In the grown-ups’ area, behind the parent check, Settings has Send feedback under About. It opens our feedback form inside Pipwood. This is the only time Pipwood goes online.

If you send the form, our feedback service receives what you type: your email address (so we can reply), a subject and your message. With it come the Pipwood version, that the phone runs Android, and a random install identifier. Pipwood makes that identifier only for the feedback form: it is not a device identifier, it starts again if Pipwood is reinstalled, and Pipwood sends it nowhere else. The form also records the phone’s Android version, model, language and screen size, the browser details the phone reports, and your approximate country. Your IP address is not stored; only a one-way hash of it is kept, to stop spam.

• Opening the form loads it with the Pipwood version, Android and the install identifier. Nothing you type is sent until you press Send.
• Nothing about your child is sent: no name, no progress, no recordings.
• We use feedback only to reply to you and to make Pipwood better. We keep it until you ask us to delete it (see Deleting your data).
• The form is run by MR AppWorks and hosted on Cloudflare.

Children’s privacy

Pipwood is made for young children, aged 2 to 5. It is meant to be used with a grown-up nearby.

United States (COPPA). We do not collect personal information from children. Nothing a child does in Pipwood reaches us or anyone else. There is no account, no chat, no ad and no link that sends a child to another site. The feedback form is for grown-ups: it sits behind the parent check, and a child cannot reach it by tapping. If a grown-up sends feedback, we hold only what they chose to send, and they can ask us to delete it (see Deleting your data).

European Union and United Kingdom (GDPR and children’s rules). We do not receive or process any personal data about your child. What Pipwood keeps stays on your phone, under your control, and you can erase it yourself at any time (see below). The only personal data we can hold is feedback a grown-up chose to send. We use it only to reply to you and to make Pipwood better. You can ask us for a copy of it, to correct it, or to erase it, by writing to the address below.

Pipwood asks for a child’s first name only to make the app friendlier. It is optional, and a nickname works as well.

Deleting your data

Feedback you sent. To ask MR AppWorks to delete it, email mrappworks.dev@gmail.com with the subject “Delete my data — Pipwood English”. Send it from the email address you used in the form, or include the reference number the form showed you after you sent it, so we can find your messages. We delete them within 30 days and reply to confirm when it is done. We delete every message you sent and everything kept with it: your email address, subject, message, the app and phone details, the install identifier and our replies. We do not keep a copy.

Everything on the phone. Pipwood has no account, so nothing else is held online. To erase what is on the phone:

• Open the phone’s Settings, then Apps, then Pipwood.
• Choose Storage, then Clear storage (some phones say Clear data). This removes every child, all progress, all settings and all recordings, and starts Pipwood fresh.
• Or uninstall Pipwood. This removes everything too.

The menu names vary a little from phone to phone.

No backup, no transfer

Pipwood turns off Android’s cloud backup and its phone-to-phone transfer. Nothing Pipwood keeps is copied to Google or anywhere else. The other side of this is that if you move to a new phone, or clear Pipwood’s storage, progress and recordings do not come with you. Pipwood starts fresh.

Google Play

You get Pipwood through Google Play. Google Play runs under Google’s own privacy policy. If your phone shares usage and diagnostic information with Google, Google may show developers totals such as installs and crash counts. That comes from Google Play, not from Pipwood. Pipwood sends nothing to Google.

Changes to this policy

If Pipwood ever changes in a way that affects privacy, this policy will change first, and the effective date at the top will change with it. Pipwood will not start collecting data from children without clear notice and, where the law requires it, a parent’s consent.

Contact

Questions about this policy or about Pipwood: mrappworks.dev@gmail.com. MR AppWorks.